Introduction
The chronic kidney disease is the state when a person gradually loses the functions of his or her kidneys so that the latter fail to eliminate the waste from the person’s blood and cause various complications ranging from faint and weakness to heart diseases, commas, and deaths. The chronic kidney disease becomes a burning problem of today as the US Renal Data System (USRDS) reports the 30% growth of incidence of this disease over the past decade. According to USRDS data, currently over 27 million Americans are suffering from the chronic kidney disease, and this rate growth for the reported 3.4% annually. This paper considers the development of the disease in the modern society and focuses on the epidemiology principals applied currently to the chronic kidney disease.
Epidemiology Principals in Chronic Kidney Disease
Basic Definitions
Starting from the very beginning, it is necessary to define the disease which is considered in this paper. Thus, according to Family Doctor (2009), the chronic kidney disease is the stable and currently incurable disease that results in the dysfunction of a person’s kidneys:
Healthy kidneys remove waste from your blood. The waste then leaves your body in your urine. The kidneys also help control blood pressure and make red blood cells. When the kidneys are damaged, they cannot remove waste from the blood as well as they should. This is called chronic kidney disease (Family Doctor, 2009).
Thus, chronic kidney disease is the inability of human kidneys to fulfill their normal functions. The reasons for the development of the disease can be numerous but the major ones, as Family Doctor (2009) and Singh, Szczech, Tang, Barnhart, Sapp, Wolfson, and Reddan (2009) argue, include high blood pressure in a human organism, heart diseases a person suffers from, and diabetes. Infections and urinary blockages can be viewed as reasons for chronic kidney disease, while the latter can itself be the reason for a number of diseases including kidney failures, cardiovascular diseases, and anemia (Fos and Fine, 2000).
Moreover, the complications of the chronic kidney disease can be rather serious to include vomiting, weakness, kidney failure, coma, and even death caused by the blockage of your blood channels by waste that the kidneys should have filtered but failed to (Singh, Szczech, Tang, Barnhart, Sapp, Wolfson, and Reddan, 2009, pp. 2086 – 2087). Any person can have chronic kidney disease, especially the people with genetic inclination to it and people suffering from diabetes (Family Doctor, 2009).
Issue Background
The fact that there are no limitations to the development of the chronic kidney disease in healthy people or people suffering from such immunity-weakening diseases as diabetes explains the dramatic increase of the disease recently reported by the US Renal Data System (USRDS): “The incidence of chronic kidney disease in 2006 was more than 100,000, or 360 per one million people, an increase of 3.4 percent over the 2005 incidence rate” (Stone, 2008, p. 2). Thus, the 3.4% increase rate in chronic kidney disease incidence is a rather large figure meaning that if the progression is preserved for the next years, the year 2010 will see the increase of chronic kidney disease patients by 10,926 people. Among the people currently suffering from the disease, there are over a half million incidences of end-stage kidney disease, and this factor also reports growth over the years (Stone, 2008, p. 2).
One of the most serious issues about the chronic kidney disease is the fact that over 70% of patients suffering from it die of the cardiovascular disease rather than from the end-stage kidney disease (Stone, 2008, p. 2). The explanation is simple: the organisms of these people are weakened excessive waste from blood that the dysfunctional kidneys fail to eliminate from the body (Family Doctor, 2009). Therefore, the complicated character of the chronic kidney disease, the number of its causes, effects, and possible complications make scholars look for the ways to treat, or at least slow down the development of, this disease. Certain results can be currently reported, although it is too early to speak of the effective treatment of the chronic kidney disease in any of its forms.
Treatment
The major way of treating the chronic kidney disease today is the so-called dialysis, i. e. the procedure of blood filtration which is carried out in order to eliminate the waste that the kidneys failed to eliminate from the blood. Stone (2008) argues that over 70% of the people suffering from the chronic kidney disease, especially its end-stage form, are on dialysis, and their expenses on the procedure range “from $14,500 for Medicare patients to $29,000 for those covered by employer group health plans” (Stone, 2008, p. 1). The procedure is rather costly, but it brings obvious results as the bulk of patients experience improvements in living conditions after dialysis. The latter is carried out in three major ways that include the use of arteriovenous fistula, arteriovenous graft, and an artificial venous catheter. The former two ways prove to be the most effective, according to Stone (2008), but the latter way is used with patients having no fistulas or grafts and taking the initial dialysis session.
Singh, Szczech, Tang, Barnhart, Sapp, Wolfson, and Reddan (2009) argue that the treatment of anemia as one of the complications caused by the chronic kidney disease by erythropoietin can be an effective way to treat the disease or ease the sufferings of the patients at least:
Anemia is common among patients with chronic kidney disease. In such patients, treatment with erythropoietin has been shown to enhance the quality of life. However, evidence suggesting that the correction of anemia improves cardiovascular outcomes has largely been derived from observational studies and small interventional trials associating a high level of hemoglobin (Singh, Szczech, Tang, Barnhart, Sapp, Wolfson, and Reddan, 2009, p. 2085).
Thus, anemia treatment can also be the effective treatment of the chronic kidney disease. This treatment and dialysis are the two most effective ways to solve the problem of the chronic kidney disease nowadays.
Conclusions
To conclude, the chronic kidney disease is one of the most important problems in the modern health care. The rates of incidence increase of this disease grow annually and currently over a half million people suffer from the end-stage chronic kidney disease (Fos and Fine, 2000). The ways to treat the disease include dialysis and anemia treatment by means of erythropoietin. These ways are not the guarantee of recovery, but at least they give relief to the patients and slow down the development of the chronic kidney disease. Needless to say, further research is needed to find the effective means of comprehensive treatment of the disease.
References
Family Doctor. (2009). What is Chronic Kidney Disease? Web.
Fos, P. and Fine D.J. (2000). Designing Healthcare for Populations: Applied Epidemiology in healthcare administration, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
Singh, A. K., Szczech, L., Tang, K. L., Barnhart, H., Sapp, S., Wolfson, M., and Reddan, D. (2009). Correction of Anemia with Epoetin Alfa in Chronic Kidney Disease. The New England Journal of Medicine, 355(20): 2085 – 2098.
Stone, A. (2008). Annual Report Targets Chronic Kidney Disease in the United States. NIH News, 1 – 2.